The Pillow Book #148

from Sei Shonagon
"#148 - Repulsive things – The back of a piece of sewing. Hairless baby mice tumbled out of their nest. The seams of a leather robe before the lining’s been added. The inside of a cat’s ear. A rather dirty place in darkness.

A very ordinary woman looking after lots of children. The way a man must feel when his wife, who he’s not really very fond of, is ill for a long time."

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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) had a strong personality - her proclamations, observations and anecdotes in The Pillow Book never cease to delight and puzzle. It's a peep into a world that is about as far removed from today (in the west) as you can get. Liverputty has hijacked her to be our woman from the Heian Court. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

The Pillow Book #65, #66, #67

from Sei Shonagon
"#65 – Poetic anthologies – The Manyoshu. The Kokinshu.

#66 – Topics of poetry – The capital. The kudzu vine. The water burr. Horses. Hail.

#67 – Disturbing things – The mother of a monk who’s embarked on the twelve-year mountain retreat.

The retainers who accompany their master on a visit to some unfamiliar place on a moonless night – to avoid being seen, they don’t light a fire but just sit there in a row, waiting uneasily in the darkness for him to reappear.

You give a servant, whom you don’t really know and trust yet, some precious thing to take to someone, and then she’s late returning.

A child who’s still too young to talk throws his little head back and bursts into tears, and won’t let anyone pick him up and comfort him."

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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) is the author of the timeless classic, The Pillow Book, which is part diary, part lists, and a whole lot of strange and strong opinions packed into a single volume. For an undetermined space of time, Miss Sei will serve as Liverputty's courtesan from Kyoto during the high point of the Heian Court period. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

The Pillow Book #55 & #56

from Sei Shonagon
"#55 – Young people and babies should be plump. Provincial Governors and suchlike people who have some authority should also be on the portly side.

#56 – Little children waving quaint toy bows or sticks about in play are wonderfully cute. It makes me want to stop the carriage and scoop them up and gaze my fill. And what a delightful whiff of incense from their clothes lingers in the air as the carriage goes on its way again. "
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The Pillow Book is a world masterpiece. Few things are as mysterious and alluring as the will and wit of the Japanese female, especially in the exotic age of the Heian Period. Sei Shonagon, as translated by Meredith McKinney, (thanks ladies!) will be serving as Liverputty's correspondence from 11th century Kyoto.

The Pillow Book #54

from Sei Shonagon
"It’s disgusting when a well-bred young man casually calls out the name of some low-ranking woman he’s visiting, in a way that reveals his intimacy with her. It’s much more impressive if he pretends not to have it quite right, even though in fact he knows her name perfectly well. If he’s visiting the apartments of women in palace service, he should really enlist a grounds-man to call her – though of course this is not a good idea at night – and if it’s some other place then he should employ one of his retainers. After all, everyone will recognize him if it’s his own voice.

"However, there can be no objection if it’s someone inconsequential, or a young girl."
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Sei Shonagon (965 to 1017) is one of the great figures in Japanese literature and a contemporary of Lady Murasaki, though the two served in rival clans. The Pillow Book is part diary, part lists, and a whole lot more. She will, for an undetermined space of time, serve as Liverputty's courtesan from Kyoto during the high point of the Heian Court period. Translated by Meredith McKinney.

Grasses of Idleness #55

from Kenko
"A house should be built with the summer in mind. In winter it is possible to live anywhere, but a badly made house is unbearable when it gets hot.

There is nothing cool-looking about deep water; a shallow, flowing stream is far cooler. When you are reading fine print you will find that a room with sliding doors is lighter than one with hinged shutters. A room with a high ceiling is cold in winter and dark by lamplight. People agree that a house which has plenty of spare room is attractive to look at and may be put to many different uses."

Grasses of Idleness #71

from Kenko
"As soon as I hear a name I feel convinced I can guess what the owner looks like, but it never happens, when I actually meet the man, that his face is as I had supposed. I wonder if everybody shares my experience of feeling, when I hear some story about the past, that the house mentioned in the story must have been rather like this or that house belonging to people of today, or that the persons of the story resemble people I see now.

It has happened on various occasions too that I have felt, just after someone has said something or I have seen something or thought of something, that it has occurred before. I cannot remember when it was, but I feel absolutely certain that the thing has happened. Am I the only one who has such impressions?"

Grasses of Idleness #82

by Kenko
"Someone once remarked that thin silk was not satisfactory as a scroll wrapping because it was so easily torn. Tona replied, "It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at top and bottom, and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that a scroll looks beautiful." This opinion demonstrated the excellent taste of the man. People often say that a set of books looks ugly if all volumes are not in the same format, but I was impressed to hear the Abbot Koyu say, "It is typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better."

In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth. Someone once told me, "Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished." In both Buddhist and Confucian writings of the philosophers of former times, there are also many missing chapters."

167 years from this day!

Yes, dear reader, as Herman Melville lived, 167 years from this date he jumped ship and began an exotic adventure that jump started one of America’s great and tragic literary careers. There’s nothing particularly significant about 167, unless you’re predisposed to celebrate prime numbers. I just ran across the date the other day and it stuck to me since I've been reading Hershel Parker’s Herman Melville, A Biography: Volume 2, 1851-1891, an account so exhaustive it has kept my lips moving for several months – and prodded me into a renewed interest in poetry. I’ve spent so much time reading about Mr. Melville and, in the interim, his own work, and in so doing become so attached to him that I’m sure I’ll get emotional when he passes, especially knowing that he departed the world not knowing that his work would ever be celebrated.

But his first two books, Typee: A Peep At Polynesian Life and Omoo: A Narrative of the South Seas, were very popular in their day, so today’s anniversary is a joyous occasion, marking the time when a new mode of travel adventure was created and made Mr. Melville one of the first sex symbols of America with expertly crafted narratives of jumping ship, bathing with young Fayaway, partaking of calabashes of poee-poee, stirring up mutinies, combing the beaches of Tahiti, bowling in the Sandwich Islands before such alleys were known in the States, and serving aboard a United States Man-of-War.

So celebrate: prepare a vessel of bo-a-sho, crack open a young coconut and enjoy a chaw of arva root. Let Herman Melville know you care.

Using Market Forces to Solve Many of the U.S. Healthcare Problems

I recently took a detour from presidential bios to read Tim Harford's "The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!" (2006). The book makes economics accessible to the layperson, and reinforces my belief that market forces are the best way to solve problems, since the underlying motivation for everyone is self-interest. (And really, I owe a debt to P.J. O'Rourke for bringing me around to that viewpoint.) Altruism, while nice, isn't sustainable.

Harford does a great job of explaining how scarcity and inside information affect pricing, how Starbuck's customers signal they aren't bothered by price, and how China has made a more successful transition to capitalism than Russia.

In Chapter 5, he details how a national healthcare system could use market forces to encourage patients to ration their own healthcare, while avoiding medical catasrophes that bankrupt them. Additionally, it would make sure the poor were able to afford health care:

"These requirements suggest: people should pay for all medical care; but insurance should cover the largest bills; and that everyone should have a savings account dedicated to medical expenses, to which the government would contribute in the case of the poor or the chronically ill.

Catastrophe insurance, which pays out only when a particular course of treatment is very expensive, is fairly cheap. The savings are no problem either; simply reduce each person's tax bill by, say, $1,500 a year - this is very roughly the cost, in taxes, of both the UK and the US public health systems - and make them put the money in a savings account. For people who pay less than $1,500 in tax a year, the government would contribute money to make up the shortfall. Since the system is compulsory, no adverse selection takes place.

If you participated in such a program, how would it work for you? Your health-care savings would automaticaly go into a high-interest bank account. They would build up gradually throughout your life. For most people, medical bills are low in their younger years. So you could expect to have thirty thousand dollars in your account when you turn forty; more, if you've managed to keep your spending low and watched the money earn interest. Thirty thousand dollars buys a lot of medical care. Of course, it could all be consumed by a single expensive procedure, except that catastrophe insurance restricts your expenses."

He goes on to suggest that the health savings accounts could be willed to heirs, so that at all stages of a patient's life, they would have an incentive to avoid over-using health care. This would avoid having the government making decisions on what procedures were appropriate for any diagnosis.

And the system sketched out has been used in Singapore for more than 20 years, where the average life span is 80, an the total private and public cost of the system is $1,000 per person. Granted, the diet of the average Singaporean is probably significantly different than the average American, but if patients shoulder more of the health expenses incurred by obesity, then perhaps the average serving plate at The Cheesecake Factor would begin to shrink.

Now, while this type of system may not be exactly what Obama had in mind, it does line up with the 3 principles he has outlined:

• Reduce costs — Rising health care costs are crushing the budgets of governments, businesses, individuals, and families, and they must be brought under control
• Guarantee choice — Every American must have the freedom to choose their plan and doctor – including the choice of a public insurance option
• Ensure quality care for all — All Americans must have quality and affordable health care

And, unlike the Clinton plan, it does not put the burden of providing coverage on employers.

Pappy Boyington as a prisoner towards the end of the war

Another, possibly the last, installment (pgs 289-290) from Baa Baa Black Sheep - though there are plenty of other excerpts worthy of posting. In this episode Boyington has been a prisoner for about a year (January 1945). The first significant air raids over the Tokyo Bay area have just begun with a carrier based strike. Ofuna, the interrogation camp where Boyington is stationed, is about 10 miles from Yokosuka:

After the New Year’s incident [see book for details – ed.] life seemed to go on much the same as before until the latter part of February 1945. Then all hell appeared to break loose over our peaceful country valley. It all started by hearing the distant wail of air-raid sirens, which we prisoners paid no attention to because we hadn’t dreamed this could be anything but a drill. But in a matter of some twenty everybody in Japan came to the realization that this was no drill. Just twelve miles from our camp the large Jap naval base of Yokosuka was taking a thumping something terrific.

Dive bomber after dive bomber started down, the hills between the target area and our camp momentarily chopping each bomber from view, making it appear as though they were diving into the hills. But in a few seconds we saw them pull out about the same time we heard the ka-lumph of the exploding bomb. Even at this distance the noise from so many engines sounded much the same as a gigantic waterfall – a steady roar. Obviously this was not a moral strike like the Doolittle raid; this was concentrated, and we knew that this carrier raid was the beginning of the end for Japan.

Prisoners were ordered by the guards to go to their cells, and to keep away from the windows or they would be beaten. This order was analogous to asking a person to stop breathing, one can stand it only so long. None of the guards bothered me, as I was in the kitchen, and I was able to get an eyeful.

What a sight, I thought, as I saw a Zero scooting low along the hilltops directly over our camp, being chased by a Navy F6F. An old familiar feeling came over me, causing a tingling to run through my body, as I watched the F6F pour his .50-caliber machine guns into the hapless Zero, which belched flame and crashed into the hillside as the F6F pulled skyward. I knew he was looking for new prey, for I felt close enough to the action, while standing there on the ground, almost to feel that I was thinking for that Navy F6F pilot.

I was thrilled by the sights of two more shootdowns before one of the guards shooed me inside through the back door of the kitchen. As much as I wanted to remain and continue watching, I had seen enough, so I didn’t mind.

Curly, the cook, was frightened half to death, and he was pleading: “What is the best thing to do? Where is the safest place?”

“Flat on your belly is the safest place I know of.” I tried to console this excited and frightened man. Curly must have taken me as an authority when I spoke, for he was flat on his face before I had finished.

After the racket had subsided and nothing was visible but a huge column of smoke rising behind the hills in the direction of Yokosuka, Curly looked up from the deck like a little child and said: “Is it all right to stand up now, Major?” And this was the first, last, and only time the little cook ever addressed me by my rank.

Pappy Boyington and the sweet and charitable Obason

Still more Boyington. There will be one or two more posts yet from his exceedingly impressive Baa Baa Black Sheep. For almost the last two years of the war he was a captive with the Japanese. Not a P.O.W., but a "special prisoner," which meant that word of his survival was not sent to the U.S. via the Red Cross. Conditions were harsh, as one would expect, but Boyington points out that his own treatment wasn't as horrendous as what others endured. Still, it was unimaginably bad. Yet, Boyington recognized that the Japanese weren't bad people. He ran across several moments of kindness, mostly from civilians and the military personel that spoke English. Obasan (correct spelling) was one that really stuck out. In this episode, Boyington has been a captive of the Japanese for several months. He's being held at the interrogation center at Ofuna - between Yokohama and Sagami Bay, a few miles from Yokosuka, where the U.S. Naval Base is today:

Most people, especially in America, just simply do not know what it means to spend one’s days dreaming and thinking of food. it is not their fault that the do not know, and may they never have to know. But We of the World Who Have Known Real Hunger know. And that is why our imaginary club should be such an understanding one, between member and member.

As another idea of how hungry a human can get, once I had soup-bone as big as my fist and it took me only two days to devour all of it, completely.

Prior to being captured, if I had been told that a large hungry collie dog could have gotten away with all of a soup-bone as large as this one, I would have considered that informant crazy. But I got away with it, every bit of it, within two days.

After nine months of capture – and with my weight down to almost a hundred pounds – I met one of my most unforgettable characters. She was a Japanese grandmother, and I called her “Auntie.”

But the reason I am especially thinking of her this evening is, perhaps, that I have helped my wife set the table for supper. And it is always in regard to food somehow that I remember Auntie the most. The Japanese word for “Auntie” is Obason, and this is what I called her.

After all this time as a captive the Nips were finally through questioning me two or three times a week, and I was getting to be rather an old prisoner around the Ofuna camp. So I was given the job in the kitchen to work from four-thirty in the morning until nine o’clock at night. For my servicesI was allowed an extra bowl of barley and a bowl of soup a day. It happened that I was not able to get along with even this additional ration because I was lugging heavy barrels of water and sacks of rice around that weighed close to two hundred pounds. For strength to do this I had to resort to other methods.

I guess everybody is inherently dishonest in some shape or form, or manner, so I stole food. I never stole any of the prisoners’ food, of course, but I stole the Japanese food, which was a great deal more nourishing, and more tasty.

I decided when I went into the kitchen after nine months of starvation that I was going to eat four times as much as any Japanese guard got of the same kind of food. Many times I had to vomit it up and many times I had other troubles, such as a little diarrhea, but I maintained that diet during all the six months I was in the kitchen.

Now due to the help of the little old civilian lady who worked there, by watching out the door to see that none of the guards was looking, and my own kleptomaniac ability, I went from my hundred or so pounds to my normal hundred ninety. I could determine my weight because in the kitchen we had some kilo scales, and the kilo is 2.2 pounds.

This little lady, who watched the door so carefully to see that no Japanese guards were around, was the only sweetheart I ever had in Japan….

….She didn’t know a word of English and she had never been outside Japan. If any of you mothers have given things to any of the war prisoners in the United States here, you were in a way repaid, for this little old lady certainly did help me out. To her I was just a starving boy. The fact that I was from America, the outfit that was sinking her sons on land, air, and sea, had nothing to do with it.

Of course, in her conversations when the guards were around, she would damn all prisoners. The poor little old thing felt she had to do that. But when the guards were away, she would continue letting me sneak out the guards’ food; although she would have been beaten too, like anybody else, if she had been caught doing this for me. So when the guards were away, she would let me walk over to their lard barrel, the stinkingest old stuff anyone could imagine. I would get some fish also. Naturally I would look around too, while doing all this, for I wasn’t trusting too much on her tired old eyes, for if one of these guards had caught me it would have meant a beating session that might cost my life. I would scoop out a big handful of this stinking lard, shove it in my mouth, and gulp it down in a second. Even though it did stink, nevertheless to me it tasted like honey.

And occasionally, when very important persons were expected, they baked fish in the kitchen. To get one of these, Obason and I had to co-operate to the fullest, almost like a quarterback and a fullback on a football field. For we weren’t allowed all the time we had with the lard snatching. We had to fool a kitchen full of people. Much the same as a quarterback, Obason would nudge me, and say “Gomen nasi, Boyingtonson,” for the guard’s benefit, when means: Pardon me, fellow, for bumping into you. I would then put a free hand underneath a fairly high working table in the kitchen, and there in the spacious folds of Obason’s apron was a hot backed fish.

The first time she ever handed me one of these hot fish I stuffed it immediately down my throat to avoid detection. The thing was so hot I had to grab the tail between my front teeth in a futile effort to stop it from sliding on down and burning my stomach. And there I stood – tears running out of my eyes, a guard asking: “Nunda” – while I was pretending to blow my nose and still keep from choking on the hot fish.

The reason I needed this food of some sort was that, before I worked in the kitchen, all of us had to do compulsory athletics twice a day. And when we prisoners bent over for our calisthenics we could hear these knee-joints, and ankle-joints and elbows snap, crackle, snap, just like a dry forest of twigs going off.

During those days in the kitchen we usually had a lull in the midmorning and mid-afternoon when the civilian cook and the guards were not there. This was when the little old lady would say to me in exceptionally polite Japanese: “Let’s have a yesomai.”

This meant she and I would have tea together, and in addition she would fix up a few Japanese pickles. She would get us a tiny amount of sugar, too, which was kept on hand only for those high-up naval officers who frequently visited the camp to quiz us. And she would steal a little bit of this sugar for our tea.

And it was during the winter months that I worked in the kitchen, from September to April, and it was cold, bitterly so. Yet these ovens are kind of Dutch-oven affairs, with big rice pots in them, and we would open up the oven doors. Of course, during the midmorning and mid-afternoon periods nothing was cooking in the ovens. The big pots merely were inside of them. So we would put a little stool in front of each oven and she would start to talk.

Only with her did I dare speak Japanese, for I never did around the guards, because we could get our war information better from them by pretending we knew nothing about their language. She was too old, or would forget, when talking to the guards about me, that I spoke practically perfect Japanese to her and understood it.

We would have this sweet tea and she would break out a little old pipe with some of this hair tobacco we had. The bowl of the pipe was about the size of the end of my little finger, and I would reach in my pocket and pull out a can and sort around fro my skeleton of tobacco from it. My own selection of tobacco consisted of what the Japanese threw down in front of the guard stove. The tobacco consisted of snipes. But they were sanitary because I had made a cigarette holder from a piece of bamboo. I would adjust one of these snipes in the end of my bamboo holder, much like Freddie the Free-loader, and take a sliver of bamboo and reach it through the open doors that were warming us, getting a light for Obason and myself.

So we would sit there, Obason smoking her tiny pipe and I smoking my snipe, and sipping this sweet tea. And as we sat talking and smoking, Obason would tell me, oh, how bad that war was, and how she longed for the day when it would be over.

She would say: “You can’t buy any candy, you can’t get any cloth to make clothes out of.” For all of these people were in rags, officers and everybody. There was hardly a person in all Japan who was not dressed in rags.

….

Anyhow, Obason said she longed for the days when the automobiles were going up and down the streets. For months before the war there was nothing but a few of those coke-burning trucks that have to be pushed up every hill, and they all carried a crew of about ten men, and every time they would come to a slight hill, they would have to shove the truck up the hill. They would go all right on the level provided they had practically no load.

Then she would ask me: “How is everything in Baykoko?” – Baykoko meaning the United States.

I was, of course, just like every other G.I. whether in England, France, Italy, Burma, or anyplace else. I liked to brag, so I said: “Oh gee, Obason, it’s great. We have all the tires in the world, all the gas, everyone has an automobile he can just ride everywhere he wants, everybody has a big ranch.”

I would kink of kid her because she seemed to enjoy the tales so much, so I said: “Well, how do you liked that as far as you’ve heard? You come back and take care of my kids for me, as I don’t have a wife.”

Old Obason would giggle and answer: “Oh, I’m afraid you might change your mind and shove me off the boat on the way back.” Wherewith she clasped her hands, dipped her knees quickly, and giggled – as she always did with a joke.

And this is the way we would talk over our tea and tobacco during the lulls when the guards were not around.

On several occasions two or three of Obason’s daughters came around. One of them had a child strapped to her back. Her appearance was almost angelic, her actions the same. One could not believe that she was what we thought of as “Nips” or “Japs” – especially with the guards we knew in camp.

When nobody was around this daughter would say the one or two expressions she knew in English. They were “I love you,” or something like that. Then she too would giggle. Of course, she didn’t mean it that way, but she had heard it from motion pictures they had shown in Japan. And the baby with her, a little kid with bangs, had the appearance of an ivory doll. The complexions of the women and children are, I thing, the nicest complexions in the world, nothing like our American women. The skins were as smooth as if they had just been covered with cream.

But one day I did an awful thing to Obason, and without meaning to.

The prison camp was to be visited again by some of those naval intelligence officers who cam out to ply us with questions, with there $64 questions. My, how time progresses, for we now have a $64,000 question.

In preparing the meal in advance for these higher-ups Obason wanted everything just so. Her pride and joy was some China dishes, and on these dishes she carefully arranged pickles and everything, including the fish.

But the more I kept thinking of these higher-ups, and all their questions that once again might be thrown at me, the less I must have remembered Obason. These intelligence bastards would be out here in a little while trying to pump military information out of us, and so, feeling mad about it, I deliberately selected this moment to clean out the stoves, allowing the grit to go all over their food on those pretty dishes.

The old lady screamed: “Boyingtonson, Boyingtonson. Yamai, yamai!” Which roughly means “Stop, stop!” And she screamed: “You’re getting toxon gomai!” which roughly means “much dirt.”

So I stopped, but it does show how, just as in all wars, the innocent must suffer just because somebody (in this case me) had a mad on.

She forgave me, but I haven’t quite forgiven myself. So when I first got back to the United States and heard that some of my Black Sheep pilots were going out to Japan, I gave them Obason’s address. At least, I gave the best address I knew and told them to be sure and give her some money and some candy.

Yet the most I could do – even now – would be but the smallest of tokens for her kindnesses to me.

In fact, while sitting here in the den awaiting supper, I cannot help imagine how it would be if the old lady, through some miracle, should suddenly arrive, as if out of the skies, for one of our old “teas” again. We would sit and talk and discuss and smoke. Only in my case it would not be snipes any more. And then, just when we were about to eat, she quickly would say: “Boyintonson, Boyingtonson, Haitison,” which means “Look out, Boyington, the guards.” Wherewith, at her joke, she would clasp her hands just as she used to do, dip her knees, and giggle.

Pappy Boyington over the Pacific

More Pappy from his book, Baa Baa Black Sheep (pages 131-137). This time he's in the Pacific with his newly formed (and unorthodox) squadron, the famous VMF-214 Black Sheep flying the great Chance-Vought F-4U Corsairs. Their legitimacy as a permanent squadron hangs in the balance as Pappy desperately tries to find some enemy action in the hope that they can impress the brass and keep their borrowed squadron designation. In this excerpt, the Black Sheep's mission is to escort some dive-bombers (Douglas SBD Dauntlesses and Grumman TBF Avengers) on a strike over the Solomon Islands:

Take-off time – the last Dauntless had wobbled lazily into the air, starting to turn in one gigantic join-up circle. We took off in pairs down the snow white coral strip at about twenty-second intervals, which was a feat in itself, because none of us had more than approximately thirty hours in these powerful new speed birds.

As we climbed, in shorter radii than the bombers, we gradually came abreast of the bomber leader, pulling up above and behind him. Radio silence was in effect. We had no intention of broadcasting our departure to the Japanese. The squadron was spread out like a loose umbrella over the bombers by use of hand signals. A reminder of lean out and reduce prop r.p.m. was passed along to all hands, in order to conserve precious fuel.

We settled down to the monotony of flying herd on the bombers. Our huge paddle-blade propellers were turning so slowly it seemed as if I counted each blade as it passed by. Hour after hour, it felt. The magnetism of counting those blades was so great I was tempted on several occasions to blurt out over the radio: “Who could ever believe this damn ocean could be so damn big!”

The group commander, leading the bombers, was responsible for the navigation. I didn’t have that worry. Finally the monotony was to be broken up, because we were flying above fleecy layers of stratus that demanded all my concentration to hold the shadowy forms of the bombers below in sight. Actually, the reason we had this cloud separation was that the bombers had to fly between stratus layers too. There wasn’t enough space for us to fly in the visual part of the sandwich and still remain above the bombers.

Thoughts of how we might louse up the all-important rendezvous after take-off were far behind. We had made that. And the rendezvous ahead, after our mission was accomplished, certainly couldn’t have bothered me. For the Brass couldn’t possibly see that, only the Nips could. And I don’t believe I gave too much thought to them.

A new worry took its place. The clouds being the way they were, no Nip planes could find us. No action. The high command would undoubtedly have us all back as replacement pilots, and there I’d be directing traffic once again. I thought: “Damn the luck… Why do I persist in planning the future when I know I can’t?”

Hardly had I gotten through feeling sorry for myself when I noticed the dive-bombers had all disappeared from sight.

“What in hell goes? W e must be over the mission.” I thought: “Jee-sus, if I lose these bombers, never showing back at home base would be the best fate I could hope for.”

I lowered the squadron through a thin layer of stratus to try to find the bomber boys. Upon breaking clear, the noise from my earphones almost broke my eardrums. One thing was for darn sure. There was no more radio silence in effect. After a few sensible words like: “Stop being nervous. Talk slower.” Words came back more shrilly and faster: “Who’s nervous? You son of a bitch, no me-ee.” Then communications settled down to a garbled roar.

Avengers and Dauntlesses, which appeared to be streaking downward in dives at all angles, were making rack and ruin upon what I realized suddenly was Ballale. Some had already pulled out of the their dives. Others were just in the process of pulling out. And still others were in their dives.

Huge puffs of dirt and smoke started to dot the tiny isle. A white parachute mushroomed out amid the dirty grayish puffs. Of course I realized it was at a higher altitude. Then a plane crashed. Avenger or Dauntless? How was I to know?

There were enough thick clouds over nearby Bougainville so that I did not expect any Nippon Zeroes to intercept us from there. I don’t know what I was thinking right at that particular moment. Or what I was supposed to be doing. Maybe, as the proverbial saying goes: “I sat there – fat, dumb, and happy.” Perhaps I was watching the boy below in much the same manner as I witnessed the Cleveland Air Shows many times. Anyhow, for certain, high cover was about as close as I ever expected to get toward heaven. So we started down.

To add to my bewilderment, shortly after we cleared the last bit of fluff, I saw that we were right in the middle of about forty Jap fighters. As for us, we had twenty planes that day.

The first thing I knew, there was a Japanese fighter plane, not more than twenty-five feet off my right wing tip. Wow, the only marking I was conscious of was the “Angry Red Meat Ball” sailing alongside of me. But I guess the Nip pilot never realized what I was, because he wobbled his wings, which in pilot language, means join up. Then he added throttle, pulling ahead of my Corsair.

Good God! It had all happened so suddenly I hadn’t turned on my gun switches, electric gun sight, or, for that matter, even charged my machine guns. All of which is quite necessary if one desires to shoot someone down in the air.

It seemed like an eternity before I could get everything turned on and the guns charged. But when I did accomplish all this, I joined up on the Jap, all right. He went spiraling down in flames right off Ballale.

The burst from my six .50-calibre machine guns, the noise and seeing tracer bullets, brought me back to this world once again. Like someone had hit me with a wet towel. Almost simultaneously I glanced back over my shoulder to see how Moe Fisher, my wingman, was making out, and because I saw tracers go sizzling past my right wing tip. Good boy, Moe – he was busy pouring an endless burst into a Nip fighter, not more than fifty yards off the end of my tail section. This Nip burst into flames as he started to roll, minus half a wing, toward the sea below.

In these few split seconds all concern, and, for that matter, all view of the dive-bombers, left me again. All that stood out in my vision were burning and smoking aircraft. And all I could make out were Japanese having this trouble. Some were making out-of-control gyrations toward a watery grave.

A few pilots I had run into before, and some since, can relate every minute detail about an enemy aircraft they came in contact with. But I’ll be damned if I can remember much more than round wing tips, square tips, liquid-cooled, air-cooled, and of course the horrifying Rising Sun markings.

After a few seconds of Fourth-of-July spectacle most of the Nip fighters cleared out. Then we streaked on down lower to the water, where the dive-bombers were reforming for mutual protection after their dives prior to proceeding homeward. We found a number of Nip fighters making runs on our bombers while they were busy reforming their squadrons.

While traveling at quite an excessive rate of speed for making an approach on one of these Zeros I opened fire on his cockpit, expecting him to turn either right or left, or go up or down to evade my fire after he was struck by my burst. But this Zero didn’t do any of these things. It exploded. It exploded so close, right in front on my face, that I didn’t know which way to turn to miss the pieces. So I flew right through the center of the explosion, throwing up my arm in front of my face in a feeble attempt to ward off these pieces.

I didn’t know what happened to my plane at the time. Evidently my craft didn’t hit the Nip’s engine when his plane flew apart. But I did have dents all over my engine cowling and leading edges of my wings and empennage surfaces. With this unorthodox evasive action Moe and I were finally separated, as by this time, I guessed, everyone else was. Certainly this wasn’t the procedure we followed in the three-week training period.

Something else entered my mind after the initial surprise and fright were over, something I realized much more keenly than any of the pilots accompanying me on this mission. I am positive, for I had been involved in this deadly game with Mars for two long years. What I knew only too well was that the average pilot gets less than one chance in a hundred missions of being in a position to fire a killing burst. And furthermore, when this rare chance comes, the one in a hundred, nine out of ten times the pilot is outnumbered, which cuts down his chances still further. Insight into these odds came to me very vividly, for I had tried my best for over two years. Yet my score to date was six. A great number of my previous mistakes suddenly came before me. Realizing that there was meat on the table that might never be there again, as far as I personally was concerned, I was determined to make hay while the sun shined.

Long after the bombing formation had gone on toward home, I found a Zero scooting along, hugging the water, returning to his base after chasing our bombers as far as he thought wise. This I had gotten from the past. When an aircraft is out of ammunition or low on fuel, the pilot will hug the terrain in order to present a very poor target.

I decided to make a run on this baby. He never changed his course much, but started an ever-so-gentle turn. My Corsair gradually closed the gap between us. I was thinking: “As long as he is turning, he knows he isn’t safe. It looks too easy.”

Then I happened to recall something I had experienced in Burma with the Flying Tigers, so I violently reversed my course. And sure enough, there was his little pal coming along behind. He was just waiting for the sucker, me, to commence my pass on his mate.

As I turned into this pal, I made a head-on run with him. Black puffs came slowly from his 20-millimeter cannons. His tracers were dropping way under my Corsair. I could see my tracers going all around this little Zero. When I got close enough to him, I could see rips in the bottom of his fuselage as I ducked underneath on my pass by. The little plane nosed down slowly, smoking, and crashed with a splash a couple seconds later, without burning or flaming.

Efforts to locate the other Zero, the intention of my initial run, proved to be futile. In turning east again, in the direction of our long-gone bombers, once more I happened upon a Zero barreling homeward just off the water. This time there was no companion opponent with the plane. So I nosed over, right off the water, and made a head-on run from above on this Japanese fighter. I wondered whether the pilot didn’t see me or was so low on fuel he didn’t dare to change his direction from home.

A short burst of .50s, then smoke. While I was endeavoring to make a turn to give the coup de grace, the plane landed in the ocean. When aircraft hit the water going at any speed like that, they don’t remain on the surface. They hit like a rock and sink out of sight immediately. For the first time I became conscious that I would never have enough fuel to get back to home base in the Russell Islands, but I could make it to Munda New Georgia. Ammunition – well, I figured that must be gone. Lord knows, the trigger had been held down long enough. Anyhow, there would be no need for more ammo.

But the day still wasn’t ended, even though this recital of the first day’s events may start seeming a little repetitious by now. And God knows I was certainly through for the day, in more ways that one. Yet when practically back to our closest allied territory, which was then Munda, I saw one of our Corsairs proceeding from home along the water. I tried to join up with him.

And just then, as if from nowhere, I saw that two Nip fighters were making runs on this Corsair at their leisure. The poor Corsair was so low it couldn’t dive or make a turn in either direction if he wanted to, with two on his tail. There was oil all over the plexiglass canopy and sides of the fuselage. Undoubtedly his speed had to be reduced in order to nurse the injured engine as far as possible.

In any event, if help didn’t arrive quickly, the pilot, whoever he was, would be a goner soon. I made a run from behind on the Zero closer to the Corsair. This Zero pulled straight up – for they can really maneuver – almost straight up in the air. I was hauling back on my stick so hard that my plane lost speed and began to fall into a spin. And as I started to spin, I saw the Zero break into flames. A spin at that low altitude is a pretty hairy thing in itself, and I no doubt would have been more concerned if so many other things weren’t happening at the same time.

It was impossible for me to see this flamer crash. By this time, I was too occupied getting my plane out of the spin before I hit the water too. I did, however, shoot a sizable burst into the second Zero a few seconds later. This Zero turned northward for Choiseul, a nearby enemy-held island but without an airstrip. The only thing I could figure was that his craft was acting up and he planned upon ditching as close to Choiseul as he could. Anyhow I didn’t have sufficient gas to verify my suspicions.

Also, I was unable to locate the oil-smeared Corsair again. Not that it would have helped any, or there was anything else one could do, but I believed Bob Ewing must have been in that Corsair. For Bob never showed up after the mission. And one thing for certain, that slowed-down, oil-smeared, and shell-riddled Corsair couldn’t have gone much further.

This first day of the new squadron had been a busy one, all right. It had been so busy I suddenly realized that my gas gauge was bouncing on empty. And I wanted so badly to stretch that gas, registering zero to somewhere close to Munda I could taste it.

I leaned out fuel consumption as far as possible, and the finish was one of those photo ones. I did reach the field at Munda, or rather one end of it, and was just starting to taxi down the field when my engine cut out. I was completely out of gas.

The armorers came out to rearm my plane and informed me that I had only thirty rounds of .50-caliber left, so I guess I did come back at the right time.

But I was to learn something else, too, in case I started to think that all my days were to be like this one, the first one. For this first day – when I got five planes to my credit – happened to be the best day I ever had in combat. However, this concerned us naught, for one would have thought we won the war then and there.

Opportunity knocks seldom. But one thing for certain, people can sense these opportunities if they are halfway capable of logical thinking, and, of course, are willing to take the consequences if things go dead wrong.

[A note on the pictures: not all are related to the 214. The three pictures below the one of Pappy are of the 214, though. The lead photo and the last photo show the coral surface tarmac the seabees were so good at constructing on many Pacific islands during the war.]

Pappy Boyington escorting the Cheks

Another excerpt from Pappy's Baa Baa Black Sheep - during his Flying Tiger days:

As we scrambled into our P-40s, with their hideous shark-faces painted on their noses, we could see a farewell reception gathering next to the DC-2 transport waiting for the famed couple.

A jeep messenger came up to us at the last minute with some instructions from good old Harvey, but not enough of them. The instructions were merely that we were to circle in sections of two at three thousand feet and then put on a demonstration, and "make it good." It was this last phrase in the order that helped cause the havoc, for when pilots are told in addition to "make it good," then believe me, they usually will take up the stinging sort of challenge and everybody else had better watch out.

Off we went in the shark-faces, and as we circled the field, climbing, we could see the official cars stop and let out Madame and the Generalissimo. Much bowing and handshaking could be detected in the tiny forms down on the field, the official party next to the transport.

At a signal from the leader the shark-faces moved into a Lufbery column. In turn each of us dove at the far side of the field at full throttle. Each pilot leveled out just off the ground. As the planes approached the official party, they started to roll, so that by the time they arrived over the transport each plane was on its back.

And this is where we overdid it. The lead planes were so low that all the figures on the ground - and this included the famous pair and our own boss - threw themselves flat on their faces, and stayed that way. And we knew then what Chennault and his dignified guests must be thinking about us, or saying about us, as they lay there. But it was too late.

One pilot with very limited flying experience told us afterwards that he had rolled quite naturally to the upside down position by merely following the P-40 in front of him, but when the time came to roll right side up again, he was a total loss because the P-40 in front of him had left his vision by pulling up. He said the only thing that saved him was remembering: center the needle and then the ball, which was taught him in instrument-flying school.

With this novice, and another pilot whose baggage door flew open, the distinguished pair Had only a Higher Power protecting them from their own airplanes. Yet all this was but the beginning of a long series in what could be termed a "comedy of errors" - except that the comedy was lacking, at least at the time.

No sooner had we finished "making it good" in regard to the demonstration, and were back up in formation, than the formation leader saw that he couldn't continue with his open baggage door and motioned for me to take over for the escort mission.

As I recall, one other plane dropped out of formation, too, leaving only six of us. The tired old P-40s were weak from lack of spare parts and from other ailments.

Finally the DC-2 transport was loaded with the dignitaries and took off. And now it was my turn, as leader of the escorts, to wish that I had been informed of where we were going. I just simply did not know, and neither did the other escorts. It had all happened so fast. But on top of all this my compass was not working, and I couldn't hear anything on my radio. As the trip progressed, I divided my time between scanning the sky for Nip fighters and trying to pick out some landmark, any landmark at all, on this unfamiliar, rugged terrain of interior China. We had, for all practical purposes, just arrived in this interior country, it must be remembered, and had not had a chance to fly around much. What few charts any of us had were virtually worse than useless.

We had flown for about two hours when it finally dawned on me that the precious load in the transport might be bound for Chungking. Thick, billowy clouds were forming rapidly, and no longer were the rugged mountain peaks visible at all. We were flying through a windstorm, and this would never do, for our little fighter planes did not carry enough gas for much of this. And what a storm it was we were to learn later, when told that the wind in this particular locality often reached the velocity of a hundred miles per hour. And we were in such a storm now, with cross winds.

Knowing that no Japs could possible find a DC-2 in that cloudy weather, I wobbled my wings good-by to the transport pilot and started my own fighters back from home or some landing place. But with my compass not working, and my radio not working, and no familiar landmark anywhere, all I could do was to try to guide our way back out of the thick clouds and be able to see something. The whole thing became a race between the clouds and our remaining gas.

The gas finally won, but only by ten minutes. This is all the supply of gas I had left when at last we broke out of the heavier clouds and I spotted what appeared to be a tiny field in a valley between rugged peaks. On flying by for quick inspection the field turned out to be not a field at all but a hill with the top flattened off. In reality it turned out later to be a Chinese cemetery way up there in the mountains. But it would have to do, even though it was much too small to land anything as fast as a P-40, and especially at the distance above sea level, six thousand feet. Yet this cemetery was our last and only chance.

So one by one we dropped over the edge of this tiny clearing, and each landing was disastrous to the plane, for all feet of drop-off, and we had to set our planes down with the gears retracted. A couple pilots tried it the conventional way but were far worse off than those who didn't.

Each plane, on being stopped in this manner, would skid along on its belly, damaging the landing gear even though it was retracted, and either one or the other wing tip in some cases. But what surprised us after that was the speed with which we immediately became surrounded by a horde of Chinese. All of us had not yet had a chance to drag ourselves from the damaged planes before the Chinese began pouring in around us. We did not know at the time where so many could be coming from, but it turned out that they were coming from a neighboring village and there were hundreds and hundreds of them. None of them seemed to understand English, but they stood there and stared back at them.

Finally a young Chinese came up to me and in very broken English explained that he was the only man who could speak our language. Among other things he tried to tell us, while all the horde stood round jabbering, was that the nearby village was Wenshan and no white man had been there for more than ten years. This man had learned English from missionaries when he was a boy.

The village, we further found out, was only a few miles from the Japanese-occupied border. In other words, I had barely missed becoming a captive of the Emperor of Japan two years before I finally did become one.

Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy - as told by Pappy Boyinton

From Pappy Boyington's book Baa Baa Black Sheep. Before he formed the VMF-214 Black Sheep, Greg Boyington volunteered with the Flying Tigers in Kunming, China. At one point his fighter group is assigned to Rangoon:

Here at Rangoon I was to meet two of the most genuine friends I hope to have. For two semi-portly gentlemen in their fifties, showing signs of years of good living, came across my path. I didn't realize then that, no matter where a person goes or what kinds of problems he may have, he always has friends.

Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy did everything a little differently from the way other wealthy colonials acted there in Rangoon. They came out to Mingaladon in person and picked up six of us AVG pilots. It was very cute, I thought, the way the inseparable pair worked together. Later, I learned, they had continued this relationship, which started when they served together in World War I. As two young men, they had realized the lack of opportunity in Scotland and had struck out to the colonies to better themselves, remaining there ever since. Jim and Bill were in the oil-refining business in Burma. Both were bachelors and always had been. And both of them had selected picturesque knolls in suburbs of Rangoon, where they had constructed their dream estates, approximately a half mile from one home to the other. The construction, the landscaping, the servants, everything appeared to blend in peaceful harmony. Jim Adams came directly to the point when they picked us up at the field, and asked us to come live with them. He said: "Bill and I have spent most of our lives in comparative comfort. But we know what the other side is like. And we decided it was awfully selfish of us, not sharing our homes with you fellows, who are the only reason we are able to live in them."

By this time all of the pilots had been billeted with different colonials in their homes. However, the six of us, living with Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy, were the only pilots whose hosts had insisted that no room and board be paid. Furthermore, they dropped everything of importance to make us feel at home, and we became inseparable.

That the best things in life are free certainly was applicable with the Adams-Tweedy homes, for at no time previously had I lived with a feeling of complete comfort. And to think of the misery of the countries we were in, with war going on full blast. The enjoyable routine still lingers in my memory, or I wouldn't bother to talk about it. And after a day's stand-by or work at the field, we would park our P-40s for the night in close-by rice paddies that had no water, just before sunset. We did this so there would be nothing but an occasional bomb crater to be filled on Mingaladon the following morning. Even lightning cannot strike something that is not there.

After our P-40s were bedded down, I would drive home to Jim Adam's lavish abode. Always, without exception, I found one, or sometimes both, of the kindly Scots with the pilots, seated about the patio next to one of the hilltop estates.

"Chota Peg" or "Burra Peg," came the friendly invitation just after darkness had set in. These were names of scotch and soda out there. The "Chota" was a single. The "Burra" was a double. Bill Tweedy laughed one night and said: "You chaps even caused us to change the name of one of our drinks. When have had to change the name of our 'Burra Peg' to 'the American Drink.'"

These evenings out of doors were augmented by typical Southern California weather that February of 1942. After we briefly accounted for the day, we downed our Burra Pegs and excused ourselves, then retired to our quarters to freshen up before continuing the enjoyable evening with our hosts. For these two Scots were the same as foster parents.

Each pilot had his own spacious bedroom with the customary large paddle-blade fan hanging from the ceiling and a large, soft four-poster bed, covered with a roomy mosquito netting. Even Angus, Jim's black dog, a great Dane, had his own bedroom and his own mosquito net.

Each household had approximately ten domestics, Indians and Burmese, ranging from gardener, chauffeur, and number one boys to first, second, and third cooks. The Indian servants lived in quarters separate from the main house, while the Burmese commuted from Rangoon.

Every bedroom adjoined a good-sized bath that was serviced from an outside door. It was baffling that with so many servants and all the attention to make your living so smooth you rarely saw more than one at a time, almost as if these servants were accomplishing the job with mirrors, as they moved soundlessly about on their bare feet.

Usually I entered the bedroom relieving myself of my dirty, sticky clothing as I walked. And by the time I entered the bathroom there was always a hot tub waiting, and the proper temperature for me. Perfect coordination, regardless of the hour I arrived. And Anto, a husky Burmese, the number-one boy, had already left unseen through the outside bathroom entrance. Nor do I remember ever calling for Anto to serve me; he must have had telepathy in addition to all his other fine attributes. If not before, I soon discovered, after I had eased myself into this refreshing tub, that cigarettes, matches, and a cool, fresh "Burra Peg" were within easy reach.

It was a king like feeling when, in fresh linen, I rejoined my associates and hot out on the tastefully shrubberied patio. As we sat around, delightfully passing the time of day, I was almost positive at times that my glass had been empty when I last set it down. But each time I picked up my glass, shaking it to be positive, I discovered that Anto or some other servant had replenished it unobserved.

Some of the evenings before dinner, which was never served before ten o'clock, Jim would ring next doore on the telephone. And the conversation would go like this: "I say, Hurumph. Hurumph. Are you there, old boy?" Blank "Sir Archibald Wavell speaking." Another blank "Would you do me the honor of cocktails and dinner this evening?"

We would alternate back and forth sometimes, with all eight of the two households at either one home or the other. Jim's Indian cook, tall and thin, was a true artist, and he served the most tasty meals I have ever experienced. This was the number-one cook, who did all of the marketing, also.

Jim explained that, owing to the higher wages in Burma, an Indian could work three years away from India, then return back home and live a year without working. Several of the Indian servants had been going back and forth for a couple generations.

The mornings, even though I was awakened before sunrise, were equally pleasant - no clanging alarm clock, no bugler, merely the delightful aroma of freshly brewed tea. This came from a teapot and a poured cup upon a table beside my pillow. And for once in my life I was able to get out of bed by degrees and enjoy myself. The cup of tea was very nearly consumed by the time I had finished a cigarette and had gotten my other slipper on my foot. Then into the bathroom for a shave and a toothbrush I went. Upon returning to my bedroom I found fruit, ham and eggs, marmalade and toast, and more tea, placed upon the little table beside my bed. What a way to live! How could I ever forget this part?

Later in the book, as Boyington and some other AVG pilots are trying to get back to the States to rejoin their respective branches, they get to Calcutta, which seems to be a holding spot for refugees:

The four of us Flying Tigers had military preference, or we would not even have slept in a hotel room with eight cots in it. Here in Calcutta I was once again to run into my two old friends Jim Adams and Bill Tweedy from Rangoon.

Jim and Bill insisted upon my coming to their room for a couple of "Pegs" for old times' sake. I couldn't help feel sorry for these two sweet Scots, who, after nearly thirty years of comfortable living, were in a ten-by-twelve room with no bath.

These Scots had really touched my heartstrings by the manner in which they had take me into their homes at Rangoon. As a matter of fact, they had been the only people who had made part of my time in the Flying Tigers enjoyable. And when I mentioned earlier, as Jim and Bill were leaving Rangoon, how relative things are, I didn't have any idea of comparing twin estates to one crummy room in Calcutta.

How can I ever forget? Jim and Bill were left sitting upon the edge of their beds clad only in shorts, balding and perspiring. They informed me that they couldn't even get any money out of England, let alone passage, for the bank accounts were frozen.

George McGovern as a B-24 pilot

I just finished reading Stephen Ambrose's The Wild Blue about the 741st Squadron in the 455th Bomb Group of the 15th Air Force (whew - AAF designations are a bitch) - particularly the crew of the Dakota Queen - George McGovern's crew. It's a helluva story guaranteed to leave the reader in awe of the young men that won the war, a great companion piece to Ambrose's Band of Brothers. The following passage wasn't the only one that stuck with me, but I thought it was worth sharing. After a bomb run over the railway marshaling yards at Wiener Neustadt, Austria. One of the bombs in the plane did not drop (if you plan on reading the book anytime soon you might want to avoid the two excerpts below):

---------------

The crew left the bomb bay doors open and Sergeant McAfee and Lieutenant Cooper went to work, trying to trigger the little steel catches on each end of the bomb, hoping to pry them open so the bomb would drop. McGovern remembered: "It was scary as hell. If the plane suddenly made a lunge when the 500-pound bomb dropped..."

McAfee and Cooper were doing their work standing on the catwalk, less than a foot wide, hanging in the center of the bomb bay. McGovern looked behind him to see how they were doing, "but about all I could see was the top of their heads and their back."

...

As McAfee and Cooper labored, McGovern throttled back to slow down the Dakota Queen and they began to lose altitude. "I didn't want to drop a bomb in front of other airplanes," he explained. "Also, I wanted to give McAfee and Cooper undivided time. I didn't know how long it would take to get rid of the bomb..."

The Dakota Queen descended to 12,000 feet, several thousand feet below the formation, which was pulling ahead in any case. Then Cooper yelled something "and all of a sudden the plane jumped and I knew the bomb had been cut loose." They were approaching the Austrian-Italian border. McGovern watched the bomb descend, "a luxury you didn't have at 25,000 feet. It went down and hit right on a farm in that beautiful, green part of Austria. It was almost like a mushroom, a big, gigantic mushroom. It just withered the house, the barn, the chicken house, the water tank. Everything was just leveled. It couldn't have come in more perfectly. If we had been trying to hit it we couldn't have hit it as square. you could see stuff flying through the air and a cloud of black smoke."

Sergeant Higgins watched the bomb descend. He commented, "It just blew that farm to smithereens. We didn't mean to do that, we certainly didn't try to do that."

McGovern glanced at his watch. It was high noon. He came from South Dakota. He knew what time farmers eat. "I got a sickening feeling. Here was this peaceful area. They thought they were safely out of the war zone. Nothing there, no city, no rail yard, nothing. Just a peaceful farmyard. Had nothing to do with the war, just a family eating a noon meal. It made me sick to my stomach."

...

After the bomb fell, McGovern closed the bomb bay doors and headed home. On the intercom, he and Cooper talked. McGovern asked, "What's the highest elevation between here and where we are going?"

Cooper looked at his map, did his calculations, and replied, "Eight thousand feet, George. Eight thousand feet." In an interview he admitted, "Actually, it was only 7,000 feet, but I added another 1,000 feet because I was engaged to get married." Cooper grinned, then added, "As George was expecting his first child, he added another 1,000 feet on top of that."

Back at Cerignola, it was an easy landing. There had been no flak on the milk run over Wiener Neustadt. There was not even a scratch on the Dakota Queen. No one had been hurt. McGovern jumped into a truck and rode over to the debriefing area, where the Red Cross women gave him coffee and a doughnut. An intelligence officer came running up to him - the same officer who had handed him a cable back in December that told him his father had died. This time, however, the officer was grinning from ear to ear. As he handed a cable to McGovern, he said, "Congratulations, Daddy, you now have a baby daughter."

...

"I was just ecstatic," McGovern said. "Jubilant." But then he thought, Eleanor and I have brought a new child into the world today - at least I learned about it today - and I probably killed somebody else's kids right at lunchtime. Hell, why did that bomb have to hit there?

He went over to the officers club and had a drink - cheap red wine. He was toasted and cheered. But, he later said, "It really did make me feel different for the rest of the war. Now I was a father, I had not only a wife back home but a little girl, all the more reason why I wanted to get home and see that child." He returned to his tent and wrote Eleanor a long letter. He did not mention the farmhouse but he couldn't get it out of his mind. "That thing stayed with me for years and years. If I thought about the war almost invariably I would think about that farm."

---------------

Pretty rough baggage to carry for years and years and a key passage in the book. However, (again: spoiler alert) the story finds a happy resolution at the very end of the Epilogue (pages 262-3):

---------------

In 1985, McGovern was lecturing at the University of Innsbruck. A director of Austrian television's state-owned stationed contacted him to ask if he would do an interview for a documentary he was producing on Austria in World War II. He wanted McGovern to talk about what it was like bombing Austrian targets. McGovern was not inclined but finally let himself be talked into it. A woman reporter did the interview. She said that Senator McGovern was known around the world for his opposition to the war in Vietnam, and especially the bombing of South and North Vietnam. Yet he had been a bomber pilot in World War II. The reporter asked, "Senator, did you ever regret bombing beautiful cities like Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, and others?"

McGovern answered, "Well, nobody thinks that war is a lovely affair. It is humanity at its worst, it's a breakdown of normal communication, and it is a very savage enterprise. But on the other hand there are issues that sometimes must be decided by warfare after all else fails...I thought Adolf Hitler was a madman who had to be stopped.

"So, my answer to your question is no. I don't regret bombing strategic targets in Austria. I do regret the damage that was done to innocent people. And there was one bomb I've regretted all these years."

The reporter snapped that up. "Tell us about it."

McGovern told her about the bomb that had stuck in the bomb bay door and had to be jettisoned, on March 14, 1945. "To my sorrow it hit a peaceful little Austrian farmyard at high noon and maybe led to the death of some people in that family. I regret that all the more because it was the day I learned my wife had given birth to our first child and the thought went through my mind then and on many, many days since then, that we brought a young baby into the world and probably killed someone else's baby or children."

When the documentary appeared on Austrian TV, the station received a call from an Austrian farmer. He said he had seen and heard McGovern. he knew it was his farm that was hit, because it was high noon on a clear day and exactly as McGovern described the incident.

"I want you to tell him," the man went on, "that no matter what other Austrians think, I despised Adolf Hitler. We did see the bomber coming. I got my wife and children out of the house and we hid in a ditch and no one was hurt. And because of our attitude about Hitler, I thought at the time that if bombing our farm reduced the length of that war by one hour or one minute, it was well worth it."

The television station called McGovern and told him what the farmer had said. For McGovern, it was "an enormous release and gratification. It seemed to just wipe clean a slate."